Never Quite Made the Interview

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to review a handful of resumes, you’ve probably seen a few bad ones in the bunch. And if you’ve reviewed a whole lot of resumes, you’ve definitely seen some really bad ones. And if you’ve reviewed a whole crap ton of resumes, then chances are, some of ‘em definitely belong here.

Joel McNary sent in a resume that he received a while back for a programmer position. Based on the cover letter, I’m guessing the candidate never quite made the interview…

Raja A doesn't expect candidates to do in-depth research on his company (Sybase) before they come in, though he did expect a little more from this candidate in the initial phone screen...

Raja: Why do you want to work for Sybase, and not at, say Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or Oracle?Candidate: Actually, sir I tried. I couldn't figure out how to apply at Google, Yahoo never called me back, and I couldn't clear the first interview at Microsoft.Raja: Okay... fair enough. But why not Oracle?Candidate: Actually sir, I thought about applying there... but I really don't want to work for a database company.Raja: Okay... ummm, we'll be in touch. Maybe.

And finally, Boris L. shares his experience from a telephone screen of a fresh out of school .NET developer...

I noticed that his application had "believes in thinking outside the box" as a bullet point. As it turned out, we just happened to be looking for a young, out-of-the-box go-getter who believed in thinking outside the box! So I asked him, "can you give me an example of your out-of-the-box thinking?"

Two full minutes (really, I watched the clock on this one) of "ummm...", "err...", and "ahhh.." later, he finally answered, "well, I had an algorithms class in college and optimized some things for efficiency.